


we were standing at the foot of a path

by tpiob



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tpiob/pseuds/tpiob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first two weeks, Cora buys a film camera at a thrift store and drags him around like they’re tourists. She walks them around Times Square and makes Derek stand awkwardly between two men dressed up as Iron Man and Captain America, cackling delightedly as she snaps a photo. </p><p>They go grocery shopping and she whips up something that tastes eerily like their mom’s chilli. When he raises a brow at her, she says, “Mom taught me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were standing at the foot of a path

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Paper Kites' Paint.

They've been driving for days before Derek actually finds a slip of paper tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket. It's been torn off a calculus textbook and he can see the end of an integration question at the edge, but he's more preoccupied with the messy scrawl in the middle: _I hope you find what you're looking for_.

A part of him wonders when Stiles even had his hands on his jacket, but then Cora makes a questioning sound at him and he controls his flinch before shrugging and tucking the note into his wallet, wincing at the way her fingers tighten a little around the steering wheel before her shoulders drop and she sighs.

It's been - weird. Weird and awkward. With the dangers of the alpha pack dominating the last couple of months, they haven't had a chance to sit still, together, and find out where they stand. His heart still jumps a little when she speaks, like it's still uncertain if she's actually back or if this is cruel, cruel game aided by the things he subconsciously remembers.

They're taking the exact route that Laura took out of Beacon Hills because it's the only one he knows. He remembers it clearly: Laura's white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and the tension that settled itself across her shoulders. Glancing over at Cora's slouch her seat he wonders how much of Laura she remembers.

When they stopover at a motel, he sees Cora drift towards the bulletin board as he's paying for their rooms and remembers Laura's fascination over them, and how she used to drag the both of them over to the boards at the grocery store with no other explanation than, "Town gossip, Der." 

It's this, more than anything, that makes him determined to make this trip different from the last one. After they've settled into the room, Cora's absently flipped through channels when he asks quietly, "What do you know about the fire?"

She stills, eyes flicking over to him and he can feel his heart beating too quickly and fear pulsing through him not unlike the silent nights he spent with Laura. She mutes the television and turns towards him.

Derek takes a deep long breath and starts with Kate.

\---

She’s not angry.

That’s – that’s new. He’s used to anger being directed at him, used to feeling the guilt that accompanies blame. Peter’s anger was always just below the surface; Derek thinks he's probably worked out the full story. Then again, Peter's always had a lot more things to be angry about.

Cora grips his hands in hers and says firmly, “I don’t blame you.”

\---

In Colorado, she says, “I was at a friend’s house the day of the eclipse. It was really dumb luck, Derek. Impromptu plans. Mum called the house and told me to find you and Laura at school but I couldn’t find either of you and by the time I got to the house...”

Derek reaches over, grips her hand in his as an apology she said she never wants to hear.

She clings back tightly, but her smile is warm when she turns to him, “I was in New Orleans when I crossed paths with them. I overheard Deucalion talking about you and Peter and I just – I didn’t think it through when I approached them. Seems like making stupid, irrational decisions is genetic, huh.”

When Derek laughs it feels like something unfurls in his chest.

\---

In New York Derek shows her the apartment he and Laura stayed in. It’s tucked away in Brooklyn and when he opens the door he’s unprepared for Laura’s scent, stale but still overwhelming. He closes his eyes, digs his nails into the flesh of his palm.

Cora takes in the bare walls of the living room, lined with two filled bookshelves, the futon in the corner and the couch in the middle of it all. She pushes past him in a rush, picking up Laura’s sweater still thrown over the back of the couch and dusting it off.

“I am _so_ taking this,” she says, and it’s so reminiscent of back when Laura used to come home from the mall with bags and bags of clothes, when Cora used to sit on Laura’s bed and steal pieces she liked, size be damned.

Derek blinks, startled for a moment, as Cora laughs and reaches over to open a window.

“Come on, Der. Show me around.”

The next breath he takes is easier, Cora’s scent mixing in with Laura’s as the summer breeze blows a little around them. It smells a little like home.

\---

The first two weeks, Cora buys a film camera at a thrift store and drags him around like they’re tourists. It’s a little exhilarating, like he's been given a second chance to explore the city without constantly looking over their shoulders. He doesn’t flinch when he sees a brunette with wavy locks, doesn’t panic or feel his claws slide out when he smells a particular spice that hits too close.

Cora walks them around Times Square and makes Derek stand awkwardly between two men dressed up as Iron Man and Captain America, crackling delightedly as she snaps a photo. They go grocery shopping and she whips up something that tastes eerily like their mom’s chilli. When he raises a brow at her, she says, “Mom taught me.”

It’s good, but not exactly easy. Sometimes he wakes up, fear paralyzing him, and it feels like it did three years ago, back before Laura and him had gotten accustomed to the scents and sounds of Brooklyn nights. Those nights he lies awake in bed, listening to Cora's breathing for hours before letting it lull him back to sleep. Sometimes, he picks himself out of bed expecting to see Laura in the kitchen, hair in a bun and brow furrowed over a case file, before he remembers.

Cora had whistled long and low when she first saw the LSAT books lining the shelves, but recently she had been taking them down one by one, flipping through their pages with a fervor that reminds Derek of author of the note that was still tucked safely in his wallet.

\---

When he tells her he’s going back to Beacon Hills she doesn’t seem surprised, gesturing at their apartment which has, over the past couple of days, been given a makeover with Cora’s clothes and collectables she’s picked up: a couple of pieces of art from flea markets, a New Orleans car plate. Laura had always meant to make the place more colorful but they'd never gotten around to it. In the space of two weeks, the apartment looks more lived in; a combination of the younger sister he knew growing up, spiced up with the one whose life he only just starting to learn of.

“I know," she says. "You don’t seem to be bothering much at settling in, here.”

He stays for another week, makes Cora teach him his mom’s chilli recipe and indulges her when she insists on visiting the Rockefeller Center again. The day before he leaves he gives her an iPad with a paid subscription for Netflix and she laughs delightedly, insists he marathon the entire first season of Pushing Daises with her.

As he hands her the keys for both the car and the apartment, she pulls out a necklace with triskelion carved out of metal hanging off it. “I found it among Laura’s clothes, I thought maybe she'd like it back."

Derek takes it from her, thinking about Laura’s smooth laughter and how she refused to take it off the first time Aunt Felicia made one, even when she was in the pool. He pockets it and pulls Cora in, breathing deep and easy, and considers staying here in the familiarity of her scent and relearning her quirks rather than heading back to where a place where his legacy is chalked up with mistakes.

In the end it’s Cora who nudges him through the door, eyes bright and smile wide, and for all that she’s told him about her life in the years he's missed, he’s still startled when faced with how much of her expressions he has no recollection of.

\---

On the flight back to California, he opens a book and two photographs to come falling out. One of them is of him, the one that Cora made him pose for in Times Square. The other is yellowing and crumpled around the edges; it’s a family photo, Christmas, if he remembers correctly, their heads tilted to avoid the flares. He never knew Laura kept it with her.

When he turns it around, there’s a message in Cora’s neat penmanship at the back: _Something old, something new. Don’t be a stranger, Der_.


End file.
